Thoughts On Orchestra And The Upcoming Concert

Augh.

Did I say the church was on the corner of St John's and Lakeview? I misremembered. It's about three or four houses along Lakeview. I'm so used to churches being on corners that I neatly edited my memory of Cedar Park United. So if you're driving down St John's this Saturday looking for a church, just turn west on Lakeview. No, really. Trust me.

I had a really bad fibro day yesterday; not only was the body clunky but I spent two hours after I submitted the proofs staring at a computer screen and I don't remember any of it. I started waking up around the time I brought the boy home, and was in great form when I left (so I thought). Loved the drive to rehearsal, which was at the church, but took the northbound exit at St John's instead of the southbound, which I do every other time I drive to this church because I am a creature of habit and nine times out of ten when I take St John's I'm going north. There was a beautiful fiery coral sunset to admire along the way. I cannot express how much I love this time of year, with dry roads and crystal-clear nights.

When I got there I discovered that the church had invested in new folding chairs that are not only padded but feature straight seats, for which all the cellists were thankful as most folding chairs slant backwards and create nasty stress on the lower back. These chairs are the perfect height and enable my knees to be at ninety-degree angles. They were set up on a grey-blue runner, so I didn't need to pull out the leather belt I use to stabilize my endpin on stone floors. Excellent! As a bonus, the ambient light was good enough that I didn't need my stand light. (This was a mistake, but more on that later.)

We shifted the order of two small pieces within the suite: the chanson now comes before all the airs and dances instead of after the finale, which makes me very happy because now everything resolves nicely. Before the shift there was the massive pounding finale followed by a very gentle song, which, while lovely, kind of robbed the suite of its oomph. We had our guest mandolinist there again as well as the guest vocalist there for the first time, and the balance is lovely. I'm really enjoying this suite, the damned Passepied aside. (Although last night it worked for me -- I kept up and only lost my place once instead of every three bars.)

I tried playing with a shorter pin last night, which made the cello more vertical, and there's not as much body in the way as when the cello is more horizontal as a result of the longer endpin. It's comfortable (at least with these particular chairs). I also played with the yet-again-remodelled bow (HRH took more off the body of the stick for me this week so it's nice and light, although the frog is still chunkier than I'd like, not that we can do anything about it) and I was impressed by the quality of sound I was producing. Every church has really different acoustics and affects how we hear our instruments and the ensemble; this one is pleasant, but overall the orchestra has problems hearing the other sections because the strings are on two different levels. It never ceases to amaze me that it takes moving out of the cavernous auditorium in which we regularly rehearse to remind me of how badly it swallows sound.

I was the only inside cellist there last night so I was playing the lower cello line alone in one of the pieces, as compared to the three outside cellists playing the upper line. I wondered why it sounded so thin. And my cello's nasal A string is really starting to hold me back; I have to constantly pull my weight and stroke when I use the open string, which is more work than I need to be doing. Maybe I'll try a wolf eliminator. It can't hurt, and it's under ten dollars. I wonder if I can get one before dress rehearsal Friday night. Maybe I'll go downtown tomorrow morning to my regular luthier and pick one up. I could ask them about 7/8s, too. If I get there when they open at 9h30 then I can be home by noon. Too bad I didn't think of this before; I could have gone out this morning instead, because it's beautifully sunny. Or maybe I'll try the new luthier; it would take about the same amount of time to get there by public transport. I don't know if I'm relaxed enough to try to travel somewhere new and head into an environment I know nothing about right now, though. After the book is handed in, I think.

Not only was the body clunky and fine motor control was pretty much absent (not a good thing when you have to make minute changes to balance in the right hand, although the left hand seemed to be just fine), but my body temperature plummeted about half an hour after arriving and thought processes slowed down too. By the time we got through most of the smaller pieces, I was fading fast. As a result I was only partially present for the symphony, which engendered interesting results. I managed to sail through places where I'd stumbled every single time in rehearsal, and messed up perfectly simple things. I have got to remind myself to get up and walk around at half-time. It would help give my mind a break. It's just that I like to use the time to run through tricky bits on what we're going to do next. (Also, as I am shyness incarnate, this way I don't have to mingle and chat.) I strongly suspect that the ambient light, while adequate to see by, affected my not-wholly-thereness.

It really felt like I was woolly, or part of me was missing. It was slightly alarming when it came to the drive home. I was determined that the I-lost-two-hours-staring-at-a-monitor thing of the afternoon was not going to happen to me on the way home, thank you very much, so I turned the music up, held the wheel with both hands, and stared at the road directly ahead of me. Once upon a time I could drive home from t!'s house and not remember any of it, but that was okay because I was nineteen, it was the West Island, and it was around one in the morning so the roads were deserted. Highways are bad. Then of course, when I got home, I couldn't fall asleep until midnight-thirty.

I'll say one thing for being slightly out of it: I was much better at moving past being anxious about small mistakes. But I was so exhausted by the end of the evening that I wonder how I'll handle Saturday night. It's a really long programme. I'm still not convinced by the opening of the Ravel, we didn't get to the Faure, and no matter how I angle my chair I can't quite see the conductor, and I'm sitting in front of him. I'll try the old raise-the-stand-an-inch trick and see if that helps. Proof that I was out of it last night: that didn't even occur to me.

On the other hand, I really liked the tone I was producing last night. I was hitting a few strings during crossings (thanks, stupid clunky right hand), but aside from that and the nasal A string I could actually appreciate the sound. You have no idea how happy that makes me.

~ Originally posted at my main journal Owls' Court.

In Which She Gives A Bow Report, And Is Somewhat Astonished At Her Proficiency

Last night after Liam went to bed, I sat down and played the cello for seventy-five minutes. I had no idea time was flying the way it was.

Late that afternoon while the boy was playing with cars and trains I had sat down to page through one of my copies of the six solo cello suites by Bach, looking for something new to play. I thought I'd try the first movement of the sixth. I was fine for the first two systems and then things started sounding not quite right, so I put it aside and made dinner. When I came back to it I tried it again and it still didn't work. And then I looked more closely at the clef. I'd assumed it was tenor, but something began to nibble at the edges of my mind, so I turned and pulled out my other edition with the facsimile manuscript opposite the printed page. Sure enough -- the edition I'd been reading from was set in alto clef, instead of putting it in the more familiar-to-cellists tenor clef. (The facsimile looks like it's in alto too, which would make sense as it wasn't written for a regular cello.) What I had assumed was tenor was actually alto. No wonder things sounded odd.

And then I looked at the rest of the piece and saw three pages of alto clef moving into treble clef and said to myself, Self, this is just going to frustrate you. So I paged back to look for something else to play and found the Gigue of the third suite, which I'd never played before. (I haven't played most of the solo suites, actually. Half of the first and one or two bits of the second is all, really.)

And I played it pretty much off the top of my head.

I stumbled in two places and worked them for a while, because they're theoretically simple but my intonation was wonky because I wanted to play in higher positions to avoid an open A string (bars 50-58 and 104-106, if anyone's counting) and my shifts weren't secure when I sight-read it. And if I'm in a position I want to stay there as long as possible, so I ended up making fingerings up for the surrounding bars too. Then I played it a few times over because it sounded good, really good, and it was welcome balm for my self-esteem. When I tired of it I moved to playing the two trouble spots in the Faure Pavane (again, if anyone's counting, bars 62-63 and 69-73, the phrases where the celli are supposed to sound soft and beautiful but not like they're working at shifting at all, argh) and worked out yet another set of fingerings that may actually succeed this time.

It felt so wonderful to be able to just sit down and play something I'd never played before, and to hear it sound good. My tone was nice, sound production was good, shifting was pretty secure (except in bars 104-106 of the Bach, damn it, where I begin in first, shift to fifth to play the A, then shift down to fourth on the B flat of the following bar -- it's the shift from fifth to fourth that is usually not far enough, or I get frustrated, overcompensate, and shift too much), and everything felt right.

I really like working with this remodelled bow. I was playing with a full practice mute and it still made the strings ring very nicely. It makes the Gigue and the Pavane really sing. Wednesday night at orchestra my hand cramped a wee bit near the end of the evening because the frog and stick are slightly larger than my previous primary bow and I was still getting used to adjusting my grip to it, but apart from making minute adjustments for the heavier weight needing less speed at certain places, especially in both Pavanes, it went well. I had no problem with it at all last night. I like it a lot, and I'm going to keep working with it as my new primary bow. I showed our section leader at rehearsal and she was somewhat impressed, I think, at how successful the remodel had been, lifting an eyebrow in mild surprise (but not horror!) when I told her my husband had done it. It's still on the heavier end of the scale, but it's much better balanced and easier to handle. She ran it through some spectacular quick exercises that made me wish I could just throw things like that off. Someday, perhaps.

I've been toying with the idea of maybe starting lessons again this summer. It would be a better use of my money than a new instrument at this point.

Experiments in Bowmaking

The frog of my main bow cracked last fall as a result of a small boy-related incident. I filled the crack with Krazy Glue and it's been fine so far. I know, I know; purists are shuddering. I paid about $150 for this bow; it would likely cost me about that much to have the frog replaced. And I love this bow; the balance is perfect, the weight is perfect, and I don't want to buy a new one.

Except with the spring concert coming up, I'm starting to worry about the crack, and have visions of the thing giving way during performance. My only usable back-up bow is a really heavy one that hurts my hand because the balance is off. Or rather, it was off.

Last night I took it to HRH and asked if he'd be able to shave some of the wood off the head and gradually extend the taper of the upper half of the stick further towards the middle. As it was, the taper went abruptly from a very thick stick to a much thinner section about three inches long at the tip. He said that while he could do it, he'd be uncomfortable because he'd be worried about breaking or ruining it. In return I pointed out that I'd only paid $80 for it, and to have the reshaping done professionally would cost more than that. Also, I still had my main bow, and so if this backup one was to be broken it wouldn't be a tragedy.

So we took it downstairs and he set up the Dremel. In half an hour we had carefully reshaped the head and upper half of the stick beautifully. It's lighter and better balanced, and the head is much more elegant than it was originally; it was very blocky before the remodelling. When I was happy with the weight, the balance, and the tapering along to the middle of the stick he buffed it, then I oiled it. Then came the final test: I sat down to try it out on the cello. To my satisfaction it travels well, and the balance is miles and away better than it had been. The fulcrum point is now a third of the way along from the frog end, where it's supposed to be, instead of halfway along the stick. I no longer feel like my hand is going to fall off or cramp up from fighting gravity when I hold it. I'm going to use it as my primary bow at rehearsal tonight and see what happens.

Daring, but successful. I'd never have tried it with a more expensive or precious bow. It makes me wonder what we could do with a bow blank, a frog, the facings and screws, and a hank of bow hair. It would be interesting to make my own bow.

~ Originally posted at Owls' Court.